Mr Speaker, I rise on a point of order.
Yes, hon member, what is your point of order?
I will be rising on three points of order on this matter and I gave prior notice of this to the Office of the Speaker. Firstly, the report that has just been announced and the relevant Bill cannot be processed because it is in breach of the Rules of this House.
The report is the basis on which four minority parties not represented in the Portfolio Committee on Trade and Industry can know what happened in that committee and decide how to vote on it today. The report disenfranchised them of this opportunity.
National Rule 251(3)(e) makes it mandatory that a report on a Bill which is not a unanimous report must specify in which respects there was no consensus and expresses any and all views of the minority.
This Rule is one of those that implement and is contemplated in section 55(2)(b) of the Constitution. It enables smaller parties which are not represented in the committee to familiarise themselves with and take a position on the subject matter of the debate. Therefore the breach of Rule 353(1) may constitute an indirect violation of the Constitution.
The IFP gave the committee less than a page of minority views consisting of 15 separate and distinct points, all of which were relevant and material to the Bill, for the committee to redraft and incorporate as it wished. After a long deliberation, the ANC in the committee decided what it liked to insert and what it chose to insert because it did not ...
Hon member, please put your point of order succinctly and don't make a statement on the matter.
With all parties objecting to this, only three of the IFP's points were inserted. Therefore the report as it is and the Bill it relates to cannot be considered - this is the point - until the report is corrected, integrated and brought into compliance with Rule 253(1). This is the point on which I require a ruling.
Before I take your point of order, I want to rule on the point of order that the member has raised. Firstly, let me thank the hon Ambrosini and the Chief Whip of the IFP, the hon Van der Merwe, for alerting the Office of the Speaker earlier today that they would be raising points of order in the House with regard to the Intellectual Property Laws Amendment Bill.
The points of order raised were considered extensively by the committee in processing the Bill. Indeed, the minority views in the committee report of 20 October 2011 reflect this. The hon Ambrosini had raised his concerns with the Speaker, in writing, even before the committee reported and the Speaker therefore had the opportunity to consider his submissions carefully. At that stage the Speaker wrote back to the hon Ambrosini, on 20 September 2011, indicating that the Bill had been tagged correctly and that there were no further procedural concerns, as the member had been articulating.
The views expressed by the Speaker on this matter stand, therefore, and I agree with him. Consequently I rule that the debate be proceeded with. [Applause.]
There was no debate.
Chairperson, I move:
That the Report be adopted.
Motion agreed to (Democratic Alliance and Inkatha Freedom Party dissenting).
Report accordingly adopted.